Posted at The Loop, the blogs at Runner’sWorld.com
So there I was, hurtling along at a sweet 7.4 mph, 2.5 ounces of 5 Hour Energy Drink dripping its way through a light dinner of salmon and broccoli fettuccine alfredo, itself already splashed with some kind of Bob Marley branded sweet tea, and all of it on a bedrock of a box of Entenmann’s donut bites that I was too ashamed to stop eating three hours earlier as I sat in front of my computer and dreamed of a day when I’d be skinny and fast. In my ears: Skeewiff, but not the new album that had just come out a few days before. In my heart: happiness, despite the gurgling in my guts, despite the snow or rain or sleet or whatever it was, despite the fact that mp3 player number one had run out of juice a few miles back, which is why I was not listening to the new Skeewiff album.
Yes, happiness, in the cold wet Seattle night, as I was running down hill, only a mile and half to go before I reached the bar where I planned on chugging a half liter of pilsner (Veltin’s, if you’re keeping track). I’m blessed with a collection of convenient coincidences: my wife goes to a dance gym that’s right next door to a beer bar and four miles (or seven if I take the long way) away from our house, and mostly downhill.
For me running and music go together like blood flow and respiration. Not long after having started this particular run, as I said, the mp3 player had crapped out, so I had walked a bit while I took off my running jacket, pulled my phone off my arm, attached my earphones, cued up an emergency playlist, set the phone back on my arm, and put the jacket back on. (Read my previous few running blog entries to see how this was not luck, but planning, as I always run with several gadgets, just in case).
So there I was as I said, running and smiling, and then the music stopped for a moment only to be replaced by a distinctive beep to let me know I had a new message on my phone. Or an email. Or a missed call. Or a friend’s Foursquare check-in (I know this guy who’s on Foursquare and visits at least twenty unique locations every day). Of course, I didn’t bother stopping to see what the message was. I could check it when I was in the bar. I just kept running, and waited for the music to start again.
And waited and waited as I ran and ran. The happiness in my heart started to leak out, and anger started to leak in. What the heck? Was this particular app that played music really going to be stymied by an incoming message? An inconvenience, to say the least, and relatively speaking, not even a minor one, as getting the phone in front of my face to re-start the playlist was going to involve stopping and taking off my jacket and etc. Curse this snow, rain, sleet, whatever– I had been afraid I was going to ruin my bluetooth watch, which I can use to control my phone remotely, so I hadn’t brought it.
You know what I did? I kept running. That’s right. Even though there was no music, even though I had at least 10 minutes left, which is an eternity, I decided to keep running. And it was pretty darn good. Not so good that I would willfully eschew music on a run, but I felt so good, in my body, in the night air, in anticipation of that beer, that losing the music wasn’t so bad.
Four minutes later, a miracle happened– the music started again! I guess the app or whatever had cycled through its issues and decided to grant me a reprieve from the silence. Did I say I was okay with the lack of music? I was, until it started again, and boy, did I love it. I increased my speed to 7.5 mph, that’s how much I loved it.
I’m not really sure what the moral of the story is, here. I finished the run, found my wife’s car, retrieved the dry jacket I had stashed there, and went to the bar to chug my half liter. It was glorious. And later, when we got back home, you’re darn skippy I charged up that mp3 player. Full juice.
I had a treadmill run to do the next day, and I’m not sure I could depend on the running-only euphoria to get me through a lack of tunes. Oh, and that message, the one that had stopped the phone? Yep, another Foursquare check-in. He was in a bar too. No idea if he had a Veltin’s or not.